How Australia's states and territories are grappling with youth crime

Australia Broadcast Center

a day ago

You'd only have to have paid passing attention to the news in the last few years to know youth crime is a hot-button issue.
It's been debated on talkback radio, at community forums and by news outlets across the country, contributing to a growing sense of community fear.
Most recently in Victoria it was a machete fight at a large Melbourne shopping centre, where most of the people allegedly involved were aged 18 or younger and on bail.
In Queensland, it was the murder of 41-year-old mum Emma Lovell who was stabbed in the heart in front of her north Brisbane house in 2022 after a violent home invasion.
The teenager who murdered her had a long involvement with the justice system before Ms Lovell's murder, having already racked up 84 convictions.
And last month in the Northern Territory, an 18-year-old allegedly stabbed grocery store owner Linford Feick to death.
It has led to a feeling in many parts of the country, former Queensland prison boss Keith Hamburger says, that youth crime is a significant problem, and more needs to be done by governments to address and reduce it and the harm it causes.
"There is a lot of fear and concern, particularly amongst older people, particularly when there is home invasions and the traffic incidents occurring, the community is quite alarmed," he says.
But figuring out just how big a problem youth crime is, what's driving it and what can be done to reduce offending and the harm it causes is complicated, and often divisive.
It's why Mr Hamburger wants a broader public conversation about the drivers of youth offending, and better decision-making around policies that are most likely to reduce crime rates.
Criminal lawyer Nick Jane usually has between 30 and 40 children he is representing at any one time.
Most of the children he represents are facing low-level charges for things like theft and property damage, but he also represents children facing serious charges like murder.
Of the children he represents, he says there are usually themes around their backgrounds and life experiences.
"Namely profound disadvantage," he says.
"The vast majority of the children I deal with come with some kind of trauma, whether that is familial or family abuse, abuse while they have been in residential care, some kind of cognitive disorder or intellectual disability… developmental delays, some kind of disadvantage, trauma."
The Melbourne lawyer says while community understanding of family violence is growing, it doesn't always publicly appreciate the long-term impacts on children.
"Those children are victims too but when we then see that trauma manifesting itself five, 10 years later in social problems, drug use… we kind of forget that the genesis of that behaviour can really be traced back to family violence," he explains.
He says there is also an over-representation of First Nations children and children living in residential care.
For children that police and crime statistic agency have identified as children of most concern — children who are repeat offenders and commit serious crimes — there can be profound disadvantages, explains Monash University crime researcher Susan Baidawi.
"This is a fairly small group of people who usually come into contact with the justice system at a fairly young age, they are usually characterised by higher prevalence of neuro-disability and they have also typically experienced a very high level of disadvantage and potentially victimisation," Dr Baidawi explains.
The statistics aren't straightforward.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics measures youth crime across the country by collecting and aggregating police statistics from every state and territory.
Its data shows the number of youth offenders are lower for every state and territory compared with 2008-09.
The same thing can be seen when comparing the number of youth offenders per 100,000 people — the rate has gone down, although there has been a slight uptick in some states and territories since COVID pandemic.
But some states, like Victoria, have recorded a significant rise in youth crime, with its agencies also highlighting the number of incidents involving young offenders — not just the number of youth offenders.
Macquarie University criminology lecturer and former police officer Victor Hurley says every jurisdiction measured crime differently, partly because each had different charges and thresholds for criminal offences.
"It is so complex to get an understanding… each state and territory only frames it within their own legislation," Dr Hurley says.
He says the statistics were also influenced by the frequency and size of police operations, which would increase the recorded instances of crime.
"Whenever a police operation is in existence, regardless of what it is, youth are going to be caught up with charges," he says.
Dr Hurley says due to these factors, he did not know what the true picture of youth crime was around Australia at the moment.
However, he says on the whole, the evidence showed overall crime was declining.
"One thing that people overlook is that crime in Australia has been going down for decades. The perception of crime is greater than the reality of crime."
While all states and territories fund youth support and crime prevention programs to varying degrees, there's been a mood for change around bail laws and sentencing.
In Queensland the Crisafulli Liberal government has introduced "Adult crime, adult time" legislation — which will see offenders as young as 10 face adult sentencing for a range of serious offences including murder, assault and robbery.
That legislation has been supported by some families and communities affected by horrific youth crimes, who have publicly called for harsher sentencing.
But it has also faced criticism, with two UN special rapporteurs calling the adult prison sentences for young people "incompatible with basic child rights".
The Queensland government has also announced an inquiry into the child safety system, with Premier David Crisafulli linking failings in out-of-home care system and youth crime.
"There is no coincidence that we have a broken child safety system and a youth crime crisis in this state, and we are determined to take action on both," he said when the inquiry was announced.
In Victoria, the state Labor government passed legislation in March to make the bail test tougher for serious child offenders and children who commit crimes while on bail — a shift in position under Premier Jacinta Allan, who also backflipped on a plan to increase the age children can be arrested and jailed to 14, after it was increased from 10 to 12.
Last year the Northern Territory's Country Liberal Party government passed new laws to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10 and increase police powers, and this year, the government also passed tougher bail laws after Mr Feick's death.
Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff last month said "all options are on the table" to address the state's youth crime, while in NSW police in April launched Operation Soteria to target up to 100 young "ringleaders" committing violent crimes in the state's north and west.
A NSW inquiry into regional youth crime has also made preliminary findings calling for more early intervention programs, while the state has plans to extend its bail reforms until 2028.
In South Australia, the government has also raised concerns about the small number of children who are repeat offenders.
It announced tougher bail laws for repeat offenders and increasing police powers for officers dealing with youth street gangs.
In Western Australia Labor Premier Roger Cook made an election promise to toughen bail laws and expedite trials for children accused of offending while on bail.
While the ACT is moving in a different direction to the states, it has announced the age of criminal responsibility will be raised for all but the most serious crimes to 14 years of age in July.
The territory is also rolling out therapeutic support panels to assess and help rehabilitate young people.
Just how successful tougher prison sentences are at reducing crime rates is often debated.
For Dr Baidawi it depends on the time frame.
If governments want an immediate drop in crime numbers, then she says they are going to invest in prisons.
But she warns that is not going to contribute to long-term success, because eventually young offenders will be released from prison and the country's recidivism rates are high.
In Australia 42.5 per cent of prisoners released during 2020-2021 had returned to prison within two years, with the Northern Territory recording the highest recidivism rate at 58.2 per cent.
For young offenders that rate of reoffending can be even higher — a Victorian study of more than 5,000 children sentenced in that state's Children's Court in 2008-09 found 61 per cent had reoffended within six years.
Dr Baidawi attributes past drops in crime rates in Australia and overseas to a greater focus on diversion programs, to keep young offenders out of prison.
"We have seen research from Australia that has shown that the rates of reoffending are lower when younger people are processed by diversionary mechanisms," she says.
What she wants to see is greater investment in preventative measures.
"Investing in school enrichment, pre-school supports, early support and assessment with disability and mental health needs, these things will bear fruit, but they might only bear fruit five or ten years later."
Australia's very high recidivism rates indicate to former prison boss Keith Hamburger that our justice systems are part of the problem with young crime.
"We are not nipping this in the bud early in the offender's offending career, so they get churned through the courts and the detention centres for perhaps lesser crimes, they go out, keep repeating and they come back," he explains.
"These children have had horrible circumstances that they are coming from, now when we talk tough, tough is not the answer — they have had tough. What they need is rehabilitation."
But that doesn't mean he is against youth detention.
He says communities still need to be kept safe from serious young offenders and these young people need a secure facility where they can be provided with life-changing supports.
What he is now advocating for is a youth detention centre transformation.
He wants states to move towards building small detention centres close to communities where young people are coming from, so they can be provided with individual rehabilitation plans that include the young person's family and community.
He's not the only person to link current custody models with high reoffending rates.
In March, retiring Northern Territory Supreme Court Judge Jenny Blokland described imprisonment, and the significant use of it, as "a wicked problem" and said it appeared to be driving repeat offending.
While in WA the Police Commissioner Col Blanch said many arrests of young people could be prevented with greater support services for the children earlier in their lives.
For criminologist Victor Hurley, one hurdle governments face in creating policy to address youth crime is the election cycle.
"The is no general long-term plan by most governments around Australia into crime reduction. Most programs are built on an election cycle. So how can there possibly be rehabilitation based on a four-year funding cycle?" he asks.
Dr Hurley says it's important to remember that there won't be one answer that is right for all young offenders.
"There will always be individuals who will always break the law, and that's what jails for," he says.
"Do I generally think that locking young people up is an answer? No."
He says each individual will respond differently to pressure points within the policing and court system.
"A bit of discretion can often be the right answer for some kids. But there are other kids that will end up living a life of crime."